Houston Astros: Five reasons why all MLB teams should play each other

Reasons #1-3: Changes that will increase fan excitement

Reason #1: World Series-winner comes to everyone’s ballpark

First, every team would have an opportunity to face the World Series winner each season. What sells more tickets than champs in town?

Reason #2: Both AL and NL champions come to everyone’s ballpark

Second, every team would have an opportunity to face both the reigning AL and NL Champions from the preceding season. Another way to think about this is that every team would have an opportunity to play both the winner and loser of the World Series—making for some high-quality interleague matchups that just don’t always get scheduled in the regular season the way things currently work.

For instance, a Nationals-Rays series is not on the books for the 2020 regular season, but could serve as a face-off offering an extremely high level of baseball. In other words, duels like Max Scherzer versus Charlie Morton and Stephen Strasburg versus Blake Snell are just several of many matchups across the majors that will have to wait for another year or two.

Reason #3: A consistent face-off of the best players

Third, each team facing all of the others every season should enhance competition, thereby increasing the quality of the on-field product. For instance, imagine must-see MLB matchups with the likes of José Altuve, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, and Christian Yelich all facing Gerrit Cole, Jacob deGrom, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander every season.

Also, as another benefit of enhancing competition, if every team plays all 29 others, strategy takes center stage, and managers would be shoved into the spotlight to show their ability to strategize against every one of their major league counterparts. MLB could even incentivize this by creating an annual award for the manager with the best regular-season record against all 29 other teams. That way, even if the Manager of the Year Award is beyond a manager’s control to earn due to unpredictable Baseball Writers’ Association of America voting, at least, being formally honored for finishing with the best managerial winning percentage remains within a manager’s own destiny.